For the disabled in America today, inclusion is a big issue. Why do we shy away from someone we can see is blind? Why do we avoid interacting with the disabled? It’s most often because we simply do not know what their lives are like and how to find common ground. Simply by learning what Lauren Merryfield’s life is like, you might find a way to make inclusion a reality in your little piece of the world. Stop procrastinating and read about what a disabled person’s life is really like. Learn what inclusion means for author Lauren Merryfield in her book, “There’s More Than One Way to Be Okay.” See that her life is not so different from yours. Think about promoting inclusion of the disabled and what that might mean for our society. Lauren Merryfield invites readers to step into her life, a blind woman’s life, and discover how inclusion can improve life for the disabled and for everyone.

Essays by Owen E. Brady, Kelly C. Connelly, Juan F. Elices, Keith Hughes, Derek C. Maus, Jerrilyn McGregory, Laura Quinn, Francesca Canadé Sautman, Daniel Stein, Lisa B. Thompson, Terrence Tucker, and Albert U. Turner, Jr. In Finding a Way Home, thirteen essays by scholars from four countries trace Walter Mosley's distinctive approach to representing African American responses to the feeling of homelessness in an inhospitable America. Mosley (b. 1952) writes frequently of characters trying to construct an idea of home and wrest a sense of dignity, belonging, and hope from cultural and communal resources. These essays examine Mosley's queries about the meaning of “home” in various social and historical contexts. Essayists consider the concept—whether it be material, social, cultural, or virtual—in all three of Mosley's detective/crime fiction series (Easy Rawlins, Socrates Fortlow, and Fearless Jones), his three books of speculative fiction, two of his “literary” novels (RL's Dream, The Man in My Basement), and in his recent social and political nonfiction. Essays here explore Mosley's modes of expression, his testing of the limitations of genre, his political engagement in prose, his utopian/dystopian analyses, and his uses of parody and vernacular culture. Finding a Way Home provides rich discussions, explaining the development of Mosley's work.

The promise of America is that, with ambition and hard work, anyone can rise to the top. But now the promise has been broken, and we’ve become an aristocracy where rich parents raise rich kids and poor parents raise poor kids. We’ve been told that the changes are structural, that there’s nothing we can do about this. But that doesn’t explain why other First World countries are beating us hands down on the issue of mobility. What's different about America is our politics. An ostensibly progressive New Class of comfortably rich professionals, media leaders, and academics has shaped the contours of American politics and given us a country of fixed economic classes. It is supported by the poorest of Americans, who have little chance to rise, an alliance of both ends against the middle that recalls the Red Tories of parliamentary countries. Because they support an aristocracy, the members of the New Class are Tories, and because of their feigned concern for the poor, they are Red Tories. The Way Back explains the revolution in American politics, where political insurgents have challenged the complacent establishment of both parties, and shows how we can restore the promise of economic mobility and equality by pursuing socialist ends through capitalist means.

Not even rural West Virginia can hide the talents of a modern-day Mozart. Stephen is a thirteen-year-old ward of the state—and a runaway who knows exactly what he is and what he wants. He’s a gifted musician who wants a career in music. Who he is doesn’t seem important—until his foster parents refuse to believe in his musical gift. Now, the lack of a last name and need for a solid identity hover in his dreams. He grew up in a small town orphanage. His foster home of the past few months was in another small town. He’d left one and couldn’t go back to the other; the only place remaining was Clarkstowne—the big city a few miles away. He knew no one in Clarkstowne, yet he’d go there and search for someone who might understand his need. Stephen’s simple “I am what I am, I need what I need” will change the perceptions of many people, beginning with the conductor of a respected symphony orchestra, a lonely boy, the musicians with whom he interacts, the friends he makes along the way, and the caseworkers and state officials who must straighten out the controversy centering on him.

Chief Inspector Frank Jacobson is back from holiday and starting to wish he'd stayed away permanently. First, the notorious rapist known as the "Crowby Crawler" is---legally---back on the streets, complete with a media circus and a mob of baying vigilantes. And second, bored, adulturous Jenny Mortimer lies dead in her driveway and her jealous, domineering husband Gus hasn't a shred of an alibi. Even when Detective Sergeant Ian Kerr casts doubt on the simplicity of the case, Jacobson isn't overly concened. If Gus hasn't done it, Jacobson has his eye on another suspect: Jenny's youthful, bohemian lover, Kevin Holland. As the summer heatwave continues and Jacobson 's stress levels soar, things that he really could do without start to happen. Things like the Crawler going missing, and Gus Mortimer turning up as dead as his wife.

Fully updated for the twenty-first century, The New First Dictionary of Cultural Literacy lists essential facts in twenty-one subject areas to promote successful learning in kids. Child education expert E. D. Hirsch Jr. cuts through the wealth of information available today to highlight terms that a child should be familiar with by the end of sixth grade. With nearly 3,000 concise definitions and including 250 new entries (like Harry Potter, centaurs, northern lights, and World Series), this popular sourcebook makes it easy for children to become literate in mythology, literature, U.S. history, science and technology, and more.